1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid ejecting head and a liquid ejecting apparatus that both eject liquid through nozzle openings. Embodiments further relate to a piezoelectric element for liquid ejecting heads or similar devices and to a method for manufacturing the piezoelectric element.
2. Related Art
A known liquid ejecting head ejects droplets of liquid through nozzles by deforming piezoelectric elements to change the pressure of the liquid in pressure chambers that communicate with the nozzles. A representative example is an ink jet recording head, which ejects droplets of ink.
A typical ink jet recording head has piezoelectric elements on either side of a flow channel substrate. The flow channel substrate has pressure chambers that communicate with nozzle openings. The piezoelectric elements operate to deform diaphragms and change the pressure in the pressure chambers. As a result, droplets of the ink are ejected through a nozzle.
A typical piezoelectric element for ink jet recording heads has a first electrode, a piezoelectric layer, and a second electrode. The piezoelectric element is disposed on a diaphragm. The piezoelectric layer is made of, for example, lead zirconate titanate (PZT) (e.g., see JP-A-2009-172878). There is a risk that this type of piezoelectric element for ink jet recording heads will break because excessive lead in the piezoelectric layer lowers the withstand voltage (e.g., the voltage at which the piezoelectric layer breaks or becomes damaged).
Such a problem is not unique to ink jet recording heads. Similar problems may also be encountered in liquid ejecting heads used with liquids other than ink.